the 1987 live action Masters of the Universe film is enjoyed by some fans while hated by others. Personally I like it, but regardless one thing that can't be denied is that it introduced us to several new characters. Sadly most of those characters we can't get figures of due to Mattel not having the rights to them, but we do have access to the three that were made in the vintage line so we finally get our first movie figure with the release of Blade.

Blade comes in the standard MOTUC blister card package. There isn't any sticker or blurb noting he came from the movie, although there was on the vintage figure's. But hey, at least he gets to keep his name. (what with Marvel having a character named Blade there was concern) The back of the box shows off a selection of other figures in the line and presents a bio for Blade.

The bit about going after the Cosmic Key is confusing as it presumably refers to the events of the film, but said events happened before the Second Ultimate Battleground. Of course exactly what happened isn't entirely made clear either. In the mini-comic that came with the vintage figure Blade, along with Saurod, is sent to serve Skeletor by a mysterious entity called the Evil Cloud who wants to get rid of the Cosmic Key as it's the only thing that can stop it. (Really the plot is very similar to that of the original Transformers movie with Evil Cloud=Unicron/ Cosmic Key=Matrix) This was presented as the first meeting between Blade and He-Man as well as Gwildor. However the movie presents a different first meeting between He-Man and Gwildor while presenting Blade as if he's been working for Skeletor for some time and is familiar with He-Man. Leading to his, for some reason infamous, line "I've waited a long time for this."

Taking a look at the actual figure now, this is one that really benefited from the updated look. There is a good mixture of old and new sculpting to bring the character to life. He uses the standard torso, shoulders, biceps and lower legs. he has brand new forearms with the spiked bracers, new upper legs that have the strapped on knives sculpted in, (these are non-removable) His boots look similar to Snout Spout's, however the sliver zig-zag design is actually sculpted in so these are new pieces.

His armor is incredibly detailed not only in the skull breastplate, but the entire chain mail appearance. Each link is individually sculpted and painted metallic silver against a black backing giving the look of actual chain mail armor. He's got spiked shoulder pads and even his wrist mounted dart shooter. The paint deco on the figure is amazingly well done all over.

The Four Horsemen clearly aimed to make the figure look far more movie accurate. While not an exact likeness of actor Anthony DeLongis, it still looks very close to how Blade appeared in the film. The head sculpt is very well done with the blades on the sides of his head gear (though they are very soft flexible plastic) his eye patch, and mainly his large scar which is far more prominent than previous figures or artwork of the character.

Blade's chest armor does suffer a bit from the ongoing problem of being too big due to the misplacement of the tabs. It's not as bad as Hydron was, but still depends on the angle. Sometimes it looks too big other times it looks fine. One thing is for sure though, it's much more film accurate than the vintage figure was. it's kind of ironic that the vintage figure did not have a removable chest armor but his belt/loincloth piece could come off, but on the Classics it's the other way around. The Classics does feature places to store his swords on his belt.

Blade comes with two swords -well duh I mean what would Blade be without his blades? He does however have an unmatched pair. One sword is based on the design of the vintage figure's while the other is modeled after how the swords looked in the actual movie. It's a little upsetting that he does not have a matched set, but it actually can work story wise. The way I imagine it Blade uses a variety of swords and collects the weapons of those he defeats in battle. (Thus now his goal is to beat He-Man and take the Power Sword as his ultimate trophy) In a perfect world of course we would've gotten two sets so we could display any way we want. Obviously this was not in the budget, which leads to the other bit of issue with the weapons in that they are very lacking in deco. Unlike the armor, which is highly detailed, the swords are rather flat colored and lacking detail. Actually it's because of the armor -with all the paint decos that went into creating the chain mail, there was no budget left for the swords. The movie sword does have some red on the hilt, but this is actually an error. Many of the props used in the MOTU movie were sold off/used for other films. and this included Blade's swords. By the time the prop was located the hilt now had been repainted/wrapped in red but looking at screenshots we can see the hilt was actually black in the movie. All this makes it sound pretty bad, but honestly it's not a deal breaker. More metallic colored swords would be better, but it's not so bad as to ruin the figure.

Blade includes a third accessory that did get great attention though. Straight out of the film it's the laser whip he used to lash He-Man late in the film. We previously had a nod to this weapon with the red pained Beast Man whip that was included in the early Weapons Pack. However now we have the official film accurate accessory. While the whip is molded in a set position, the laser part is made of a translucent red plastic so as to truly capture the film look.

Regardless of how you feel about the movie, Blade is a cool character who translated into a very awesome looking figure. I wasn't overly fond of the vintage figure, but that was mainly due to it's lack of film accuracy in appearance. That has been completely fixed for the Classics version which is incredibly done -making me all the more anxious to get a Classics version of Saurod. Blade sold out on Mattycollector.com so check the secondary market for him. Good Luck and until next time, Good Journey.

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